WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2023
WWW.NEIUINDEPENDENT.ORG
UPass Renewal On Main Campus Only El Centro and Carruthers, Take a Hike!
Student-run newspaper since 1962 Volume 43 Issue 2
By: Leslie Lozada, Campus Life Editor Illustrations by Jesus Robles
Students having to find other ways of resolving their Upass situation. At the start of the Spring semester of 2023, some full-time students were unable to receive their Ventra U-Pass within the first week of the semester. Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) is one of several participating universities involved in the Upass program to provide college students in the Chicagoland area with access to Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) services, such as the “L” train, and buses. On the NEIU website, full-time students receive a Upass on a Ventra Card that is given to them by the university for the spring, summer and fall semesters. There are ways to waive the $155 pass fee, but there are specific requirements to do so. “I couldn’t tell until I was scanning on the bus and it wasn’t allowing me to come on.” - Clay Cofre
The Independent reached out to the email provided by NEIU for the Upass program, with no response. Two students who spoke with the Independent also stated that they have not received a response through email. One such student, Clay Cofre, the Editor in Chief of Seeds, NEIU’s student literature journal, tried calling the phone number pro-
vided by NEIU, to no avail. During winter break, Cofre and some of their other staff members came to the main campus on a regular basis to manage Seeds and to hand make the journal’s issues. They used their Ventra pass for that, as well as work before the semester started. In the first week of classes, they noticed that the pass was not active on their card. “And I thought that maybe it was
just like a glitch in the system, because we had not been provided with any information that it had to be physically turned on.” Cofre said, “After about a few days of basically wasting my own money… I looked online at the Northeastern website, and tried to call the people in charge of the Upass activation. That phone number no longer exists, so I don’t know why it’s still on the website.” Cofre finally received their Upass activation four weeks into the semester. They did not receive any information about reactivation until three weeks into the semester. “The only reason I was able to reactivate it, is because I spoke to someone else who had a similar issue, and they gave me the information that I had to check into the Help [Welcome] desk, to have to reactivate it. And now it’s working, but it’s just frustrating that the university didn’t provide any information regarding that reactivation process.” They and other students had to go to the Welcome Desk on the main campus for workers there to manually reset the card, as confirmed by the current Executive
Director of the Student Union and Campus Recreation, Andy Dutil. “The Welcome Desk would be the only location currently.” - Andy Dutil Students who primarily attend El Centro, which is by Avondale and Logan Square neighborhoods and the Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies in Bronzeville, would have to travel to the main campus in order to have their cards reset. Continues on Page 2